Mp3 players have become the new "must have" accessory for almost everyone. People of all ages use MP3 players. They're easy to use, extremely portable and are capable of storing all your music so you're never without your favourite beats anywhere you go! There are 2 different types of memory found in MP3 players: Flash Memory (smaller capacities) and hard drives (larger capacities).

The benefits of a flash MP3 player over a hard drive MP3 player are that MP3 players which use flash memory are generally lighter in weight and more portable. Flash memory based MP3 players contains no moving parts, which means the MP3 player is 100% skip free. The most popular examples of flash memory players currently available include the iPod Nano, iPod shuffle and Creative Zen Stone MP3 players.

Hard drive MP3 players are used in larger capacity units such as the iPod 30GB, 60GB and 80GB with video playback. MP3 players with rely on hard drive memory are able to offer a much higher memory capacity which basically means you can store more songs, photos and video files.

The largest amount of memory in a flash based MP3 player is currently 8GB (enough for about 2500 songs). This has increased significantly as memory chips have become cheaper in the market and also more stable in that they can handle higher stress levels. This means that they are able to have large amounts of data synchronised to them at any one time then before. The popularity of flash memory based MP3 players is growing significantly as larger and larger memory capacities are being made available to consumers.

Samsung are soon expected the break the 8GB memory size barrier although none of their planned new MP3 player releases are set to launch with a memory size greater than 8GB. The Samsung YP-P2 MP3 player will be available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB from launch in late September 2007 as will the YP-T10 and the YP-S5 ? a highly anticipated follow up to the YP-K5 MP3 player which features a slide out speaker. All of Samsung's new releases are set to feature Bluetooth and video playback functions.

As the market has developed, manufacturers have introduced an array of new features in their MP3 players. Things like Bluetooth which allows you to connect wirelessly to a Bluetooth enabled headset device giving you a wireless MP3 listening experience. Video playback is now a common feature found in most higher end MP3 players. This means that not only can you listen to music on the go, you can watch your favourite movies or TV episodes. Many websites now allow video downloads as well as music downloads which makes it easy as pie to have everything on the move with you. Alternatively, consumers are able to rip music from their own CD collection and even movies from their own DVD's although this can sometimes prove to be a little long-winded.